nd bully the
little boys.

One evening Tom and East were sitting in their study, Tom brooding over
the wrongs of fags in general and his own in particular.

"I say, Scud," said he at last, "what right have the Fifth Form boys to
fag us as they do?"

"No more right than you have to fag them," said East, without looking up
from an early number of "Pickwick." Tom relapsed into his brown study,
and East went on reading and chuckling.

"Do you know, old fellow, I've been thinking it over, and I've made up
my mind I won't fag except for the Sixth."

"Quite right, too, my boy," cried East. "I'm all for a strike myself;
it's getting too bad."

"I shouldn't mind if it were only young Brooke now," said Tom; "I'd do
anything for him. But that blackguard Flashman----"

"The cowardly brute!" broke in East.

"Fa-a-ag!" sounded along the passage from Flashman's study.

The two boys looked at one another.

"Fa-a-ag!" again. No answer.

"Here, Brown! East! You young skulks!" roared Flashman. "I know you're
in! No shirking!"

Tom bolted the door, and East blew out the candle.

"Now, Tom, no surrender!"

Then the assault commenced. One panel of the door gave way to repeated
kicks, and the besieged strengthened their defences with the sofa.
Flashman & Co. at last retired, vowing vengeance, and when the convivial
noises began again steadily, Tom and East rushed out. They were too
quick to be caught, but a pickle-jar, sent whizzing after them by
Flashman narrowly missed Tom's head. Their story was soon told to a knot
of small boys round the fire in the hall, who nearly all bound
themselves not to fag for the Fifth, encouraged and advised thereto by
Diggs--a queer, very clever fellow, nearly at the top of the Fifth
himself. He stood by them all through and seldom have small boys had
more need of a friend.

Flashman and his associates united in "bringing the young vagabonds to
their senses," and the whole house was filled with chasings, sieges, and
lickings of all sorts.

One evening, in forbidden hours, Brown and East were in the hall,
chatting by the light of the fire, when the door swung open, and in
walked Flashman. He didn't see Diggs, busy in front of the other fire;
and as the boys didn't move for him, struck one of them, and ordered
them all off to their study.

"I say, you two," said Diggs, rousing up, "you'll never get rid of that
fellow till you lick him. Go in at him, both of you! I'll see fair
play."

The